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Next Thursday, America once again goes the polls. Or a few bits of it do, which hold so called ‘Off-year’ elections between four year Presidential cycles and the two year Congressional cycle. The highlight of these ‘Mid-Mid-Terms’ is undeniably Virginia, being the only statewide race which is really competitive. For a few decades Virginia has been trending steadily more blue and shouldn’t really be a sweat for the Democrats to hold, but sweating bullets is precisely what Democrats are now…

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Forget current betting favourite and twice leadership failure Andy Burnham the next party leader will surely come from the above trio who have all come to the fore in the past month. Lisa Nandy has been looking like a strong contender for some time while the response by Rachel Reeves to the budget on Wednesday put her solidly within the frame. Last night on Question Time Bridget Phillipson showed why she should be taken seriously. Faced with the sheer competence…

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Smarkets are keeping up their weekly local council by-election bet. Tonight there are eight contests and the one chosen is Currock & Upperby on Carlisle council This was the result in a three member ward when contested in May 2019. Lab 798, 667, 555UKIP 556Cons 326, 293, 283Green 251Lib Dem 237 The UKIP councillor has since died. My money would be on Labour.

The one person who appears to have come out best from the Budget is the Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves who gave the first response in place of Starmer who is isolating because of COVID. Normally this is a role for the opposition leader and Reeves used her opportunity in the limelight to maximum effect. She looked confident and has generally got good reviews. The Mirror had it “‘Demolition woman Rachel Reeves smashed the Chancellor’s Budget brick by brick’”. These are…

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Inevitably the budget totally dominates the from pages and next PM betting favourite Sunak will probably feel pleased with the coverage. His position in the betting has not changed. Under the heading “This is more politics than economics” this is how the Guardian is reporting it What Mr Sunak’s speech, and the US-style social media campaign that preceded it, revealed was a politician who wanted to be the candidate for everyone. With his tax-and-spend policies, Mr Sunak feinted left, expanding…

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The new premier cast her eye across the Cabinet table and took in the empty room. Soon her newly assembled cabinet would gather for the first meeting since the General Election of December 2024.  Rachel Reeves allowed herself a few moments to take it all in and just briefly marvel at how she had somehow ended up as Prime Minister. The terrible winters of 2021/2 and 2022/23 were of course responsible for the Labour landslide that had followed the collapse…

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As regular PBers will know I have a significant stake in Sunak’s future following a £20 bet I placed with Ladbrokes in November 2019 when Rishi was just a junior minister. The quoted odds of him being next PM were 200/1 increased by the firm’s “odds boost” to 250/1. I know that some other PBers are also on at those odds following the post by Phillip Thompson. This is a massive day for Sunak and generally, budgets get received well…

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Welcome to the first Smarkets “Budget Bingo” betting created by Shadsy who used to be at Ladbrokes. This was one of his specialty bets which he has now created for his new employer which, of course, is a betting exchange. The full list of possible phrases or words that Sunak might use is here. These are the market rules: This market relates to Rishi Sunak’s Autumn Budget speech on 27 October Sunak must use the exact word or phrase as…

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